|
"Guardians of the frontier, keepers of the peace," commemorated for the centennial of the director's state of birth. The opening holdup is an outlaw racket, the stagecoach driver getting his hat shot off (Jack Oakie) is in cahoots with the gunslingers who ride out of the scrub (Fred MacMurray, Lloyd Nolan). Joining the Texas Rangers is the next scheme, "courage, a good head and a better aim" are the requirements, perilous missions make brave recruits out of the larcenous opportunists. (Or two out of the three, in any case, as Nolan's "Polka-Dot Bandit" cuts a swath through the untamed territory.) The gangster-movie structure suits King Vidor's hardy western, a midpoint between Billy the Kid and Northwest Passage. Choice outdoors filming, not appreciated by the grousing sidekick in the desert: "No towns, no ranch houses, no gals, no nothing!" Pinned on the side of a hill during an Indian skirmish, MacMurray climbs up one side past rolling boulders and down a tree on the other side, an Anthony Mann sequence avant la lettre. After the wrath of wilderness, the corruption of civilization—the county under the thumb of the murderous honcho (Fred Kohler), who's quelled by old ruthless instincts behind the new lawman's badge. (George Hayes as the tippling judge voices the verdict on thwarted henchmen in the courtroom-saloon: "Just a little slow on the trigger.") Schoolmarm (Jean Parker) and orphan (Benny Bartlett) evoke The Champ on the range, Oakie's continuous flow of jokes and songs contrasts with the abrupt brutality of his demise, complete with pistol smoke rising from under the poker table. "He got on the wrong train, that's all" is the villain's epitaph before the showdown, a characteristically striking fusion of landscape and violence. With Edward Ellis, Frank Shannon, Richard Carle, Jed Prouty, and Charles Middleton. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |